


The Red Setting

by sonictrowel



Series: Long Night in the Blue House [20]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Light Angst, Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 03:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10481130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: This was it, then.  The crucial piece, or at least one of them.  The Doctor carefully replaced the altered screwdriver on River’s vanity, nestled in its case among her jewellery box and perfume and the gun belt with her spare blaster inside.  Standing there in their silent, dark bedroom, looking at her things, it almost felt like before.  Like when she was gone, and he was just the lonely, distant outsider again, slowly becoming more alien and cold, without an anchor to goodness.





	

 

When the Doctor returned from walking River to the car before her Monday morning lecture, he popped his head into the lounge and snapped his fingers.  Milly looked up from where she was reading on the sofa, while Nardole remained engrossed in the television.  The Doctor pointed silently, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head toward the linen cupboard before going in.

A few minutes later Milly joined him in the console room, strapping on the Vortex manipulator as she entered.

“Okay,” the Doctor clapped his hands once and rubbed them together, “what’ve we got?”

“The Hazandra,” she said with a grin, “once I go and grab it.”

“Wait—” he reached out and she paused in the middle of keying in the coordinates.  “Just, before you disappear again, tell me _something._  River— the other one— she’s been giving me nothing lately.  I don’t know what the hell we’re _doing_ here.  I don’t even know why you’ve had to take the stone out of this time!”

“It’s…” Milly frowned.  “You don’t really like talking about it.”

He gave her a blank look.

She sighed.  “You’ve got the stone in this time, yeah?  Or you will have again, in a minute.  But we’re going to do something with it now, so you can't take it with you after.  And later in _your_ timeline, you’re mostly popping in and out of an earlier time, and back then it’s… in use.”

“Oh.  Right.”

“I told you, you don’t like talking about it.”

“No,” he looked down, running a hand through his hair, “I don’t.”

“He’s fine, you know.  You’ll—” she hesitated and closed her mouth, exhaling heavily.  “The stones outlast a lot of things,” she began again, her tone gently pacifying.  “They definitely outlast humans.”

“River said the same.”

“Well, you should know to listen to _her.”_

The Doctor had to crack a rueful smile at that.  “Believe me, I’ve learnt that lesson about a thousand times over.”

“Here’s a thousand and one, then.”

“Hmf,” he said in acknowledgement.  “So, fine.  I found the stone here, I sent it forward to my future self, who is mostly back in time, and then it’s back to me here again.  When did it get to the cave for me to find it in the first place?”

“Later.”  Milly showed no signs of planning to elaborate.

The Doctor sighed and waved a hand at her dismissively.  “Fine, don’t tell me anything.  Go on and get it, then.”

She dipped a sarcastic half-curtsy, punched a few keys, and disappeared with a zap.  The Doctor turned back to face the console and looked around at the TARDIS’s ring of lights, brightening and dimming.

“You just love this, don’t you,” he grumbled.

The air crackled again and Milly reappeared behind him.

“Oh.  That was quick.”

“It’s this thing called time travel?” she said, gesturing incredulously.

“Yes, well.”  He cleared his throat and trailed off into a mumble, “Guessing you didn’t learn it from me.”

Milly smirked but said nothing.

“Did I tell you anything useful?”

“Yep,” she said, opening her hand to reveal the stone gleaming in her palm, along with a computer chip.  “The Professor’s screwdriver.  It needs a red setting.”

___

This was it, then.  The crucial piece, or at least one of them.  The Doctor carefully replaced the altered screwdriver on River’s vanity, nestled in its case among her jewellery box and perfume and the gun belt with her spare blaster inside.  Standing there in their silent, dark bedroom, looking at her things, it almost felt like before.  Like when she was gone, and he was just the lonely, distant outsider again, slowly becoming more alien and cold, without an anchor to goodness.  Slowly forgetting what it was to have the deep fulfillment of sharing this sort of mundane intimacy with another person.  No, not just with another person.  With his inimitable, brilliant, kindhearted, fearsome, wonderful wife.

But this time capsule had always been there, taunting him with his loss and what he could have again, whenever he wanted, if only he were prepared to say goodbye for good.  It seemed until tonight their lives had been nothing _but_ painful goodbyes, with all the brilliant little stolen moments of joy just brief flashes in between.  But every one of them had been enough to make all the hurt and loss seem a faint memory, if only for a little while.

Just one more goodbye.  Once more, and then never, ever again.  They’d move forward together to a future that wasn’t already written, and he wouldn’t let a damn thing in the universe come between them.  If only, _oh, please,_ if only this would work.

The Hazandra was encased in the screwdriver’s bulb, in a sort of fluctuating space/time field, so that the “red setting” would appear when it was needed, but otherwise the stone would be hidden.  He would evidently work out the calculations at some point in the future, because Milly had plugged the chip into the TARDIS to reconfigure the screwdriver without further explanation of how it was done.  She told him only that this was what made the River saved to the computer _River._  Not a backup, not an echo.  His first wish on the Hazandra, and it was one he had already seen would be granted.

After Nardole had first been reassembled, Milly, River and the Doctor conducted some first-person research on the Hazandra.  He could see the gears turning in River’s head when she frowned down at the stone, refusing to touch it.  Of course he knew what she was afraid of doing—  _the ghost of love and wishes._  Theirs were the same.  But they both knew they couldn’t change what happened next without changing their past as well.  He ached to tell her he had a plan, to comfort her.  But he couldn’t give her any more hope than he already had, not without risking her making a different choice in the Library, thinking he would somehow come through and stop it.  And he couldn’t stop it.  He could only try to fix it.  He felt like a fucking monster whenever he thought about it, but it was a promise.  His very first promise to her, however silently made, and he would keep it.

Milly told River she’d sent the stone on to a museum in Andromeda.  At least the Doctor didn’t have to personally lie about that bit.

He returned to the console room and sat down heavily on one of the jump seats.  Milly smiled at him from the one on the opposite side.

“Feeling better now that’s done?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, his voice sounding as tired to his own ears as he felt.  “I know well enough that this part works.  But beyond that… can’t see enough of the picture to know.  I guess you know what’s next.”

“I’ll tell you if you fuck it all up,” she said cheerfully.

“Well that’s a comfort.”

“You have plenty still to do, but you’ll know when.  Don’t worry.”

He looked at her in helpless frustration.  “Who _are_ you, Mils?”

“Oh, not this again!  What’s that even mean?  I’m a person.  Name’s Milly Smith.  Tada,” she held up her hands and wiggled her spread fingers.

The Doctor scoffed.  “There’s _obviously_ more to the story than that.”

“God, the Professor was right about this.  Couldn’t just be happy with ‘your hot ladyfriend from the future,’ and can’t just be happy with ‘your brilliant little mate.’  You go round the universe picking up women to kick your arse as needed.  Do you give all your Earth girls such a thorough vetting?  Can’t really be _that_ huge a mystery if one turns up out of sequence occasionally.”

He appraised her silently for a moment before raising his eyebrows and huffing out a reluctant laugh.  “Shit.  Guess you’ve got me all figured out.”

“Yep,” Milly said brightly, standing up from her seat.  “Now come on, we’re missing _Iron Chef.”_

“River said you’re thinking about applying to teach at Luna,” the Doctor said, not rising from his seat.

Milly stopped and frowned as she turned back to him.  “I… might like to, someday.”

“But not when you leave here,” he said, reading her hesitant expression.

“I’ve sort of got a— a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Some places I’ve got to be, and some... places I’ve got not to be.”

“Starting to sound a bit ominous.”

“Really not something you need to worry about.  I’ve got two of you doing that already and you’re a bloody menace.”

“Two of _me?”_

“I did say you’ll see me in the middle before we meet the right way round.”

“And now you’re saying both of me are worried about you.”

Milly groaned.  “No I didn’t.  We’re not having this conversation.”

“It really appears that we are, Mils.  Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“What, you think I’ve come out to this backwater blizzard dome cause I’m part of the criminal element?  Actually, I quite like that, let’s go with that.  Milly Smith, outlaw across space and time.  It’s a bit sexy.”

The Doctor sighed.  “There’s other kinds of trouble to be in.”

“And I’m sure you’ve been in them all.  We can’t all get out as much as you, Doctor.”

“You haven’t answered a single bloody question of mine.”

“What can I say, it’s a skill.”

“Mils—” he started again, but she abruptly stepped in front of his seat and ruffled his hair into a chaotic mess while he scrunched his eyes shut and scowled.  

“Leave it, Song.  It’s fine.”  She turned on her heel and left the control room.

___

The Doctor flopped down on the bed, over the duvet, and stared at the ceiling.  He _could_ be having a nap.  Time Lords could nap if they felt like it, there was no rule against it.   _He_ didn’t, unless River was there, but there was no reason he couldn’t.  He was _definitely_ not sulking.  He just had a lot on his mind, and that on its own would be one thing, but the fact of the matter was that he didn’t know what most of the rubbish on his mind even _was._  Some things were exciting mysteries to solve, and not having all the information just made them more enticing.  These did not seem like those kind of things.

River came home in the afternoon, and the Doctor’s hearts leapt at the sound of her voice in the front hall, brightly exchanging pleasantries with Milly and Nardole.  Just thinking of those thousand years without her, and the unknown of how long he’d be waiting for her, after… it had left him positively desperate to see her.  He shouldn’t have let it get to him; he knew she would only be gone a few hours.  After a minute of unintelligible chatter in the lounge, River and Milly burst into laughter while Nardole kept talking.  God, her laugh was like music. He heard her ask a short question and Milly answer, and then her footsteps approaching down the corridor.

“Why’re you sulking, darling?” River’s voice was beautifully clear and close in the doorway, and he rose up on his elbows to look at her.  Her face was all concern, thinly veiled by her teasing.

“I could be napping,” he muttered.

“You don’t nap,” she said, frowning.

“Not without you,” he replied, and reached out for her.

She smiled a little, though the worry was still plain on her face, and crossed the room to him.  As soon as she’d put a knee up on the bed, the Doctor wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down next to him.  He held her tight against his chest and buried his face in her hair, breathing her in.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just missed you, love,” he said as lightly as he could manage, kissing the top of her head.

“I’ve been gone six hours,” she said gently.

“Too long,” he mumbled.

“Oh, Doctor.  Become attached, have we?”

“Sweet of you to finally notice.”

She pulled back to look up at him, biting her lip.  “Talk to me, honey.”

“It’s— nothing that’s happened, really.  Just… remembering.  When you weren’t— when _I wasn’t_ around.  Just thinking too much.”

“Mm,” the edge of concern in her expression softened into sympathy and she reached up to touch his face, sliding her thumb over his cheek.  “I might know a thing or two about that.”

She leaned up to kiss him and he sank gratefully into her warmth, trying to let all the worry melt away from him.  Her mind reached out to his, brushing softly and tentatively at the edges of his consciousness.  He made sure nothing she couldn’t see was open to her before enthusiastically embracing the connection.  Immediately he sighed in relief, relaxing into the perfect comfort of being mentally and physically entwined with her.   _Love you, love you, love you_ rang back and forth in their minds, and he wasn’t sure which one of them originated it.  Her lips were so soft and gentle on his and her body warm and perfect snuggled against him.  

When they eventually parted just enough to breathe and brush their noses together, he decided a nap might be nice after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much again to everyone reading!!! Absolutely love hearing what you think! :)


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